Your Mid-August Reading Tips, Part II

1) "You'll Never Be Chinese," by Mark Kitto, in Prospect magazine from England. There is a lot to say about this piece, and a lot of discussion it has kicked up in the China and China-expat blogosphere. I'll get into that as soon as I can. For my take on parallel "soft power" themes, see this and this*. Just laying this down as an important item on the reading list.

2) "The Souls of Chinese Cities," by Christina Larson, and "Unlivable [Chinese] Cities," by Isaac Stone Fish, in the new "Cities" issue of Foreign Policy. Again lots to discuss and lots to chew over soon. Short version: I agree with the thrust of both of these pieces.

3) "Letter About China," from Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group. There has been a slew of recent news on the China-takes-to-the-skies, and what-that-all-means front, which I have not taken time to pull together in one place. Aboulafia, the go-to guy when people are writing about aviation, has a very sensible perspective. (Disclosure: he has nice things to say about my book.) For now I put this as a placeholder for looking at the fast-changing news in this field.

4) The Australian View of China, in various papers and essays radiating out from this one on the Lowy Institute's "Interpreter" site. More to say on this, too, pretty soon, but here's the main theme: Hugh White, of the Australian National University, has generated a lot of heat with his essays on the implications of China's (in his view) inevitable rise, and thus the inevitable need for strategic power-sharing between the U.S. and China. Some Aussies agree, some see it differently. You'll find links to all the discussion there.

* And, yes, will update the book-appearance page any day now. Next up: this weekend my wife and I will both be speaking at the Sun Valley Writers Conference in Idaho, to which we are about to head.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

James Fallows is a staff writer for The Atlantic and has written for the magazine since the late 1970s. He has reported extensively from outside the United States and once worked as President Carter's chief speechwriter. He and his wife, Deborah Fallows, are the authors of the new book Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey Into the Heart of America, which has been a New York Times best seller and is the basis of a forthcoming HBO documentary.